VIC and WA federal redistribution drafts released – live

By
Ben Raue
-
587

6:12pm – I have one last update and then my margins will be finalised.

There are four seats in Victoria where independents made it to the two-candidate-preferred count (2CP), but have added new areas where there was no independent in the 2CP: Goldstein, Kooyong, Nicholls and Wannon.

This issue isn’t relevant in Curtin, since that seat only lost territory. It’s also not an issue in Labor vs Coalition seats with non-classic areas added, since the AEC has calculated a 2PP figure in every part of the country. It’s also not such a big issue in the seat of Melbourne. Since the Greens had a primary vote in the new areas added to Melbourne, you can calculate a margin based on preference flows.

But in the case of Goldstein, Kooyong, Nicholls and Wannon, none of that works. You could theoretically not count any votes in the newly-added areas, or give the independent candidates zero votes in those areas. Neither of those seem fair.

Accounting for these new areas is important in all four seats, but particularly in Kooyong. Almost one quarter of all electors in Kooyong are new to the electorate, all from Higgins. The figure in the other seats ranges from 3.7% in Wannon to 9.1% in Goldstein. This reflects the relatively minor changes in rural Victoria and the major changes in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne.

My first approach earlier this afternoon was to credit all Labor 2PP votes to the independent, and all Coalition votes to the Coalition candidate. But I think that underestimates their support.

In the areas which were not new additions to these seats, we have both a 2CP between the independent and a Liberal or Nationals opponent, plus a 2PP which is Labor vs Coalition. We also have 2PP counts for all the new areas. In all four cases, the newly-added areas are less favourable to Coalition on the 2PP than the areas already contained in these seats. Indeed every seat that gave some territory to a seat where an independent made the final count is held by Labor: Hotham, Isaacs, Higgins, Bendigo and Corangamite.

We know that generally independents did better against the Coalition than Labor did in these seats.

So this table shows my revised approach. I have compared the 2CP and 2PP in the non-moving areas, to calculate how much the independent over-performed Labor. I then add that extra vote to the Labor 2PP in the newly-added areas.

This approach significantly improves the independent position in all four seats. What do you think?

I also want to briefly touch on the peculiar seat of Macnamara. My approach to redistribution (which I believe is similar to Antony and William) is to break up the vote by each SA1, and then reassign the SA1s to the new seats and merge them. Unfortunately this means that, when there is a vote category that has been amalgamated into a single seat-wide total (such as postal votes) effectively I assign the same share of postal votes to every SA1. This is less true for pre-poll votes (where there are multiple pre-poll centres with different geographic patterns) and much less true for election day votes.

I have an alternative approach for state and local redistributions, where we don’t have SA1 results data. For those, I distribute the election day votes then skew the special votes to match the skew of the election day vote. So if Labor does better in one part of the seat on election day, I give it a better share of the special vote in that part of the seat.

I tried to apply that approach to my federal method but it didn’t work, so I’ve left it as is.

Most of the time this doesn’t cause problems. Usually we’re most interested in seats where the changes were significant, not the seats where changes were slight. These estimates are not precise, so when changes are small they should be taken with a grain of salt. 0.1% one way or the other isn’t really meaningful.

Now in Macnamara and Higgins there is a peculiarly large gap between voting patterns in different parts of the seats, and we’ve often seen very left-wing areas around Windsor moved around while they are part of larger seats that have voted Liberal (or at least not been so left-voting). This can produce peculiar outcomes where a small movement of a very left-wing part of a more conservative seat produces a counterintuitive change in the margin.

I recommend that people don’t obsess over very slight changes in the margin or primary vote estimates in Macnamara. The seat was close to a three-way tie in 2022 and any redistribution changes will be much less significant than how voters change in 2025.

4:10pm – I’ve now finished replacing the data after fixing the SA1 issue. The margin in Melbourne has dropped a bit further to 6.9% (I’d previously estimated 7.9%). The Labor margin in Wills is slightly better than I’d previously estimated, now at 4.6%.

3:51pm – Looking at the Victorian 2PP and primary votes, the main changes were Bruce, where the Labor margin is now 5.3%, which is much closer to the pre-redistribution margin and closer to Antony’s margin.

3:06pm – Okay I’ve solved the SA1 problem and will start uploading the corrected figures. Starting with 2PP and primary for WA, the Labor margin for Cowan has dropped to 9.9%, whereas my first estimate had it up to 11.0% (from 10.8%). The Labor margin in Bullwinkel is just 3.3% (not 3.7%) and Labor in Pearce is on 8.8% (not 8.4%). The Liberal margin in Canning is now 1.1%, not 0.8%.

2:33pm – It appears the AEC has switched from using 2016 SA1s for the 2022 election results spreadsheet to 2021 SA1s for the redistribution data, so it will be necessary to add some extra code that adjusts for these changes and this may change some margins. I’ll get that done later today and update the tables.

2:07pm – Okay I’m logging off now. I’m sure there’ll be more analysis later. I will be writing a piece for the Guardian tomorrow and I’ll be carefully kicking some tyres to see if there are any errors in the estimates over the coming days.

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2:05pm – So the creation of Bullwinkel in the outer east of Perth has then pushed all of the neighbouring seats out of the way.

Hasluck has become a much smaller seat and now sits entirely on the northern side of Perth.

Moore has shifted south, with Pearce adding a small area from Moore. Cowan and Perth have lost their eastern edges to Hasluck.

Swan has also shifted west, while Canning has lost its north-eastern corner to Bullwinkel and compensated by picking up Karnup from Brand. This explains the big drop in the Liberal margin there.

Tangney, Fremantle and Curtin have experienced very minor changes.

1:59pm – And here is the interactive map for WA.

1:55pm – Okay now here we have the 2CP margins for WA. Curtin thankfully didn’t add any extra territory so no complicated calculations needed there. Bullwinkel is a notional Labor seat with a 3.7% margin. Labor has also significantly improved their position in Hasluck, and the Liberal position is weaker in Canning. Labor’s margin has also been dented in Burt.

This means that Labor has gained a seat and the Liberal Party has lost a seat so far in this redistribution, with NSW yet to come.

Seat Old margin New margin
Brand ALP 16.7% ALP 17.1%
Bullwinkel (new) ALP 3.3%
Burt ALP 15.2% ALP 13.3%
Canning LIB 3.6% LIB 1.1%
Cowan ALP 10.8% ALP 9.9%
Curtin IND vs LIB 1.3% IND vs LIB 1.3%
Durack LIB 4.3% LIB 4.7%
Forrest LIB 4.3% LIB 4.2%
Fremantle ALP 16.9% ALP 16.7%
Hasluck ALP 6% ALP 10.1%
Moore LIB 0.7% LIB 0.9%
O’Connor LIB 7% LIB 6.7%
Pearce ALP 9% ALP 8.8%
Perth ALP 14.8% ALP 14.4%
Swan ALP 8.8% ALP 9.4%
Tangney ALP 2.4% ALP 3%

1:49pm – And here we go with WA. This table shows the 2PP and primary vote estimates for each seat.

Seat ALP 2PP LIB 2PP ALP prim LNP prim GRN prim IND prim
Brand 67.1 32.9 50.7 21.8 11.3 0.0
Bullwinkel 53.3 46.7 36.4 35.74 11.3 1.8
Burt 63.3 36.7 49.8 24.78 9.5 0.2
Canning 48.9 51.1 35.1 41.44 8.4 1.6
Cowan 59.9 40.1 45.8 30.97 10.0 0.0
Curtin 44.4 55.6 13.8 41.36 10.4 29.7
Durack 45.3 54.7 28.8 44.84 9.5 0.0
Forrest 45.8 54.2 27.7 43.13 13.3 0.1
Fremantle 66.7 33.3 44.0 24.38 17.9 0.0
Hasluck 60.1 39.9 43.7 30.12 11.4 2.1
Moore 49.1 50.9 31.9 41.81 14.1 1.3
O’Connor 43.3 56.7 26.7 44.5 10.9 0.0
Pearce 58.8 41.2 42.4 30.12 11.2 0.0
Perth 64.4 35.6 39.1 27.21 22.0 0.0
Swan 59.4 40.6 40.0 31.64 15.1 0.0
Tangney 53.0 47.0 38.2 39.41 12.4 0.0

1:36pm – So just a quick description of what the map shows before moving on to WA.

The seat of Melbourne has jumped the river into South Yarra, which has then pulled Wills and Cooper south, making Wills much stronger for the Greens. This doesn’t appear to have done much to the Greens’ position in Macnamara, although we’ll need to wait for a 3CP estimate to know for sure.

The abolition of Higgins has had dramatic impacts in the eastern suburbs, with Kooyong and Chisholm absorbing most of the seat.

Menzies has lost areas further east and expanded into Box Hill, which explains the seat becoming notional Labor.

Deakin has retracted to areas further east, further reducing the Liberal margin from a slim 0.2% to 0.02%.

Aston was barely touched, as was Goldstein, but Hotham, Isaacs and Dunkley have all been pulled north. Casey also expanded west to take in areas from McEwen and Menzies.

In the western suburbs, Lalor has contracted sharply, and Hawke has taken in the area around Melbourne Airport. But generally changes in the west were mild.

Outside of Melbourne, Corangamite has again shrunk in size, now almost entirely fitting within the Bellarine Peninsula.

Indi, Gippsland, Mallee and Monash appear to be unchanged, or close to it. McEwen has moved closer to Melbourne, but it has made no difference to the margin.

1:26pm – Okay I have now had a chance to revise my Melbourne 2CP estimate which was very quick. I now have the Greens on 7.9% by applying the same preference flows to the new areas as the rest. That is a drop in the Greens margin of 2.3%, but nothing like my first estimate.

1:18pm – Okay here is my interactive map where you can toggle between the old and new boundaries for Victoria. Will take a quick bathroom break then be back.

1:05pm – And here is my first stab at the new margins for Victorian seats compared to the old margins.

Seat Old margin New margin
Aston LIB 2.8% LIB 2.6%
Ballarat ALP 13% ALP 13%
Bendigo ALP 12.1% ALP 12%
Bruce ALP 6.6% ALP 5.3%
Calwell ALP 12.4% ALP 12.4%
Casey LIB 1.5% LIB 1.4%
Chisholm ALP 6.4% ALP 3.3%
Cooper ALP vs GRN 8.7% ALP vs GRN 7.8%
Corangamite ALP 7.6% ALP 7.8%
Corio ALP 12.8% ALP 12.5%
Deakin LIB 0.2% LIB 0%
Dunkley ALP 6.3% ALP 6.8%
Flinders LIB 6.7% LIB 6.2%
Fraser ALP 16.5% ALP 16.6%
Gellibrand ALP 11.5% ALP 11.2%
Gippsland NAT 20.6% NAT 20.6%
Goldstein IND vs LIB 2.9% IND vs LIB 3.9%
Gorton ALP 10% ALP 10%
Hawke ALP 7.6% ALP 7.6%
Higgins (abolished) ALP 2.1%
Holt ALP 7.1% ALP 7.1%
Hotham ALP 14.3% ALP 11.6%
Indi IND vs LIB 8.9% IND vs LIB 8.9%
Isaacs ALP 6.9% ALP 9.5%
Jagajaga ALP 12.3% ALP 12.2%
Kooyong IND vs LIB 2.9% IND vs LIB 3.5%
La Trobe LIB 8.7% LIB 8.4%
Lalor ALP 12.8% ALP 12.8%
Macnamara ALP 12.2% ALP 12.2%
Mallee NAT 19% NAT 19%
Maribyrnong ALP 12.4% ALP 13%
McEwen ALP 3.3% ALP 3.4%
Melbourne GRN vs ALP 10.2% GRN vs ALP 6.9%
Menzies LIB 0.7% ALP 0.4%
Monash LIB 2.9% LIB 2.9%
Nicholls NAT vs IND 3.8% NAT vs IND 2.5%
Scullin ALP 15.6% ALP 15.3%
Wannon LIB vs IND 3.9% LIB vs IND 3.4%
Wills ALP vs GRN 8.6% ALP vs GRN 4.6%

The Greens margin in Melbourne has been weakened quite significantly, while the Greens are much closer in Wills. Labor is also slightly weaker in Cooper.

Labor is much weaker in Bruce, Chisholm and Hotham, but stronger in Isaacs.

The seat of Menzies has flipped from 0.7% for the Liberal Party to 0.3% for Labor.

With Labor losing Higgins but picking up Menzies, that’s a net loss of one seat for the Liberal Party.

12:47pm – Okay I have calculated the 2PP and primary vote for the main parties for each seat, below.

Seat ALP 2PP LNP 2PP ALP prim LNP prim GRN prim IND prim
Aston 47.4 52.6 32.5 42.8 12.2 0.1
Ballarat 63.0 37.0 44.8 27.1 14.5 2.1
Bendigo 62.0 38.1 42.8 26.7 14.0 4.4
Bruce 55.3 44.7 40.3 31.7 9.7 0.2
Calwell 62.4 37.6 44.9 23.7 9.8 0.0
Casey 48.6 51.4 25.1 36.6 13.1 11.4
Chisholm 53.3 46.7 35.0 39.2 13.8 4.0
Cooper 75.7 24.3 40.7 16.2 28.4 0.0
Corangamite 57.8 42.2 38.4 34.0 15.3 0.0
Corio 62.5 37.5 41.9 25.0 14.7 0.1
Deakin 50.0 50.0 32.9 41.5 14.2 1.1
Dunkley 56.8 43.2 40.5 31.7 10.6 3.4
Flinders 43.8 56.2 22.8 43.3 9.5 11.7
Fraser 66.6 33.4 42.1 24.5 18.9 0.0
Gellibrand 61.2 38.8 42.8 27.2 15.6 0.3
Gippsland 29.4 70.6 19.2 54.1 8.5 0.0
Goldstein 46.3 53.7 13.6 39.6 8.4 31.3
Gorton 60.0 40.0 41.3 27.4 9.0 2.5
Hawke 57.6 42.4 36.7 26.4 8.9 7.9
Holt 57.1 42.9 40.8 29.5 8.6 3.0
Hotham 61.6 38.4 42.9 28.6 15.0 0.2
Indi 44.7 55.3 8.6 34.3 3.6 40.7
Isaacs 59.5 40.5 42.8 29.5 12.1 0.0
Jagajaga 62.2 37.8 40.8 29.2 16.7 3.0
Kooyong 46.3 53.7 11.3 43.4 9.9 31.0
La Trobe 41.6 58.4 26.2 45.2 10.9 0.0
Lalor 62.8 37.2 44.1 25.0 10.4 2.8
Macnamara 62.2 37.8 31.7 29.1 29.7 1.9
Mallee 31.0 69.0 16.8 49.1 5.3 12.2
Maribyrnong 63.0 37.0 42.2 26.8 16.7 0.0
McEwen 53.4 46.6 36.9 33.1 14.2 0.0
Melbourne 73.1 26.9 25.7 19.5 44.7 1.0
Menzies 50.4 49.6 31.8 41.0 12.9 4.9
Monash 47.1 52.9 25.6 37.8 9.9 10.7
Nicholls 34.1 65.9 13.2 43.5 3.7 24.0
Scullin 65.3 34.7 46.1 21.9 10.9 0.0
Wannon 41.4 58.6 19.7 44.2 6.7 20.8
Wills 77.1 22.9 36.4 16.2 32.8 0.2

12:40pm – The AEC has now published the Victorian redistribution. I’m going to focus on getting the new margins up first then analyse the trends.

12:17pm – While the AEC has not published anything, the Gazettes are now up.

In Victoria, the seat of Higgins has been proposed to be abolished. No other seat has changed names, and apparently 34 other divisions have been changed. 8.31% of all electors have been moved to a new seat.

In Western Australia, the new seat is named Bullwinkel, after Lieutenant Colonel Vivian Bullwinkel. The seat seems to be located in the outer eastern suburbs of Perth. 14.57% of electors have been moved to new seats.

12:00pm – The Australian Electoral Commission will be announcing the draft federal electorate boundaries for the states of Western Australia and Victoria this afternoon. They have indicated that the boundaries will be published at some point between 12:30pm and 2:30pm AEST.

My plan is to publish my estimated margins for each electorate, and estimated primary votes for the main party groupings, some descriptions of what changes have happened, and maps showing the old and new boundaries.

In 2021 I was held up by a problem where they didn’t publish the SA1s for Victoria until a couple of hours after they published their report, and then there was a problem with the data. Hopefully that won’t happen again, but I’ll be relying on that data to calculate the new margins.

On the other hand, I have previously drawn my own KML versions of the electorate boundaries. I am not planning to do that this time, so it should be quicker to take the AEC shapefile and make interactive maps this afternoon.

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587 COMMENTS

  1. Seems a lot of it is with stuff there was mixed messaging about. Some people said it was better to use the proposed Melbourne/Macnamara boundary, others suggesting putting Southbank into Melbourne. Some said Deakin and Menzies should be east/west seats, others said they should be north/south.

    Stuff like Casey/La Trobe isn’t really something there was a lot of disagreement about, it was just whether or not you can get the numbers to work.

    Glad they are considering the Mernda/Wollert swap. If for no other reason, then it’ll massively help draw McEwen in the future.

  4. per the AEC twitter account

    “The final names & boundaries for federal redistributions underway in WA & VIC are likely to be announced by the end of this week.

    The announcement of NSW names & boundaries is likely to occur by the end of next week.”

  6. Given how quickly the final boundaries came out relative to the proposed ones, don’t think there’s much change from the proposed boundaries

  8. Dan M, this is what I was going to say.

    If they’re talking “final boundaries” then there’s clearly not going to be any second round style consultation due to them making major readjustments.

  9. @mark mulcair there is an option for further objections if required but it doesnt look like there will be any major changes which is unfortunate to say the least. the hybrid seat of bullwinkel which caused a range of knock on effects effecting all of wa divisions which was unnecessary and the abolition of higgins causing a range of knock on effects in melbourne are my biggest dissapointments but the aec will do whatever it thinks best. overall i agree with the nsw redistribution but would do things differently if it were up to me

  10. Yeah that does seem to indicate that they’ll keep things largely as is.

    The abolition of North Sydney has always seemed inevitable, and the campaigns from Kylea Tink and Zali Steggall I think were wasted on trying to push Mackellar into St Ives when they should have been more focused on getting Lane Cove into Bradfield.

    There was definitely a stronger case for overturning the abolition of Higgins, but it would have required pretty broad changes to Southern/Eastern Melbourne along with a few divisions north of the Yarra. The commission would have probably put this in the ‘too hard’ basket.

    But there’s probably still the possibility that they make Bullwinkel into a metropolitan-only seat as it would actually simplify the overall set of changes, but there wasn’t much commentary around this so they may be happy to leave this one unchanged.

    I’m sure there’s quite a few nervous MPs waiting to see what hand they get dealt. Inner and Eastern Melbourne, as well as Northern Sydney are going to be very interesting to watch at the upcoming election.

  12. Usually there aren’t many changes made to the draft
    Proposals. Interesting to see if proposed changes to
    Banks remain. These are close to the boundaries of the 1970s when Lang Waa abolished.

  13. Since the draft boundaries for WA were released on 31st May there has been no serious or credible submissions to manipulate the boundaries to make Bullwinkel a metropolitan-only seat. The ALP in fact proposed only a minor adjustment to the draft proposals. Bullwinkel is very similar to what Pearce used to be from 1990 until 2001, and moreover Pearce continued as a ‘hybrid’ seat right until 2022. The creation of Bullwinkel is 100% logical.

  14. The North Shore boundaries were quite quite reasonable – my only change would have been keep the name North Sydney and retire Warringah. On having Lane Cove in Bradfield – there is zero community of interest between Lane Cove and anywhere north of Chatswood unless you count North Shore Line Riverview boys going to school.

  15. @angas i expect only minor changes to bullwinkel as any major change would require another round of objections so i imagine it will still be a hybrid seat. this is probably good for the coalition though as a perth only seat would likely be a win for labor.

    in regards to the redistribution overall i think if morrison was still PM he would be going to an early election before the redistribution was complete as forcing a mini redistribution would favour the liberals for the following reasons

    1. combining warringah and wentworth would eliminate a teal and the libs could actually win the seat as the teal vote might have fractured especially if residents of the north and south shore only voted 1 for their local member then put the libs second. a vote would probably put the libs on 40% stegall and spender on 20% each and the remaining being taken up by labor and the greens

    2. combining durack and hasluck into 3 division would likely favour the coalition in both durack and durack-hasluck and hasluck would have been more favourable then the proposed version which moves further into the city.

    3. a combined higgins-chisholm would eliminate a labor mp and might give the libs a chance in the combined division

  16. Any PM who called an election in the full knowledge that they would cause a mini-redistribution would be crucified in the media, and rightly so. Mini-redistributions are inherently clumsy and unfair, they are designed as a disincentive to calling an election ahead of the distribution process. The unfavourable comment about such a move would cancel out any on-paper advantage for an incumbent government.
    In 2008 a WA Government opting for the “smart tactic” of an early election found that this decision became a continuing and damaging election issue.

  20. The only real changes are Mernda being united in McEwen and Wollert in Scullin and the rest of Malvern East being united in Chisholm at the expense of parts of Wheelers Hill. More ambitious and sensible changes that I was hoping for like the fixing of the Melbourne/Macnamara border and the Menzies/Deakin/Chisholm boundaries unfortunately didn’t come into fruition.

  21. Darcy, the maps are only published once the final determination is made (24th Sep for WA and 17th Oct for Victoria).

  22. They’ll publish the maps but more importantly the data when the final determination is made so you’ll need to wait until then to get redistribution estimates. I could try and do it without that but it’d be a lot of work and I’m already doing too much and have to move house too.

  24. so despite the bbest attempts of most people on this page Hotham lives to see another election. though i would have prefered hotham to higgins

  25. Disappointing news. I am wondering if more major changes/corrections such as “fixing” some of the issues we have identified would have required another round of comments etc and then had not enough time!

  27. Disappointing to see a pretty lazy effort by the commission at this final stage.

    I get that things like retaining Higgins and rerouting Melbourne’s surplus were probably too big a challenge, but they’ve neglected to clean up a number of areas which could have been done with no issues.

    I’m particularly surprised that there was no change to Lalor. This was obviously a niche concern but there was a clear case that using those SA1 boundaries was a bad idea. Looks like Corio is going to include actual suburbs of Werribee for the forseeable future.

    Funny how they’ve agreed to the Mernda-Wollert swap and have removed Bendigo from Hepburn Shire, but have then decided to split Campaspe Shire instead of returning Woodend to Bendigo.

    Putting all of Malvern East in Chisholm makes sense, but they’ve made a mess of it by putting a random chunk of Wheelers Hill into Hotham in return. They probably should have just used Ferntree Gully Road as the entire border at that point.

  29. Surprised they didn’t do the very obvious

    Prahran to Macnamara
    Camberwell to Kooyong
    Malvern to Chisholm
    Bentleigh to Hotham

    Which probably would have seen less movement of electors overall. At least glad they did the Wollert/Mernda swap. Maybe Vic needs to go a few years before another redis so that they are forced to make bigger, and more necessary changes next time.

    Maybe the Corio/Lalor thing is that they might want to create a new Geelong/Werribee seat in the future. Geelong is already at about 2 quotas and Wyndham + Hobson are 2 quotas. Both fast growing areas.

  30. Underwhelming – with the kerfuffle of ABS numbers clouding the suggestion process, I really thought there was a chance of them entertaining the Hotham chop.

    At both stages they seem to have favoured a very minimalist approach – even if not so bold as to reverse Higgins, there were plenty of other good suggestions they could have incorporated without a wholesale revision. Hopefully the report includes some of their reasoning.

    Ideally this is the last map before a parliamentary expansion to properly clean things up.

  31. The obvious change is to increase the number of seats in parliament. Look at the electorate size before and after the 1984 enlargement

  32. @Leon
    Yeah some of those Sydney seats are an absolute mess and I’ve got very low hope that they’ll bother to improve them.

    @Drake
    I agree, that would have been a pretty straightforward chain of improvements. Spotswood is another one you’d think they would have picked up. I’m getting the impression that they’re incapable (or unwilling) of considering changes that involve more than 2 seats which is unfortunate.

    That’s a good point about Lalor. I’d rather not see a half Geelong/half Werribee seat as I think they are distinct areas, but it may be necessary at some point in the future.

    @BenM
    I think the ABS error has definitely led to a worse redistribution result than otherwise. Far too many changes were justified on the back of the original comments, and they have been very dismissive of the vast bulk of the objections raised. I’m thinking that the large number of submissions possibly meant that they couldn’t give things the proper amount consideration deserved.

    Agree with everyone that an expansion of the house will go a long way to shake out some of the more awkward divisions, but there’s always a chance that they stuff up the new map too!

  34. i think the expansion of the house should be done after 2031 when pretty much all the states/territories will be up for redistribution

  35. @John
    Makes sense, although I’m personally hoping they get it done in the next couple of election cycles.

    The ABS released new population figures today with Australia’s population now officially above 27 million. It looks like Victoria had a strong quarter of growth between Dec-23 and Mar-24, compared to a large relative decline for New South Wales. Queensland seems to be relatively stagnant, while Western Australia continues growing towards 17 seats.

    With any luck, the current annual trends will continue and the 4 largest states will all need redistributions between the 27/28 and 30/31 elections. I can see Victoria and Western Australia losing a bit of steam by then, but if New South Wales and Queensland hit the trigger then that’s probably enough to get the full process started.

    These are the new figures by my calculations:
    – NSW: 46.21 quotas (-0.16 annual change) [4.4 years until seat loss]
    – VIC: 37.97 quotas (+0.14 annual change) [3.9 years until seat gain]
    – QLD: 30.34 quotas (+0.04 annual change) [3.8 years until seat gain]
    – WA: 16.11 quotas (+0.14 annual change) [2.9 years until seat gain]
    – SA: 10.22 quotas (-0.09 annual change) [8.0 years until seat loss]
    – TAS: 3.14 quotas (-0.06 annual change) [10.5 years until seat loss, but protected by 5 seat minimum]
    – ACT: 2.58 quotas (-0.02 annual change) [9.9 years until seat loss]
    – NT: 1.39 quotas (-0.02 annual change) [2.7 years until seat loss, unless legislation changed]

  36. With the existing seat numbers it is like We are in a time warp Bennelong is going back to 1974 boundaries. Banks similar to post 1990 boundaries and.Bullwinkel similar to the.old Pearce.

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